Forget
by decyfer
Summary: He'll never forget her.


Forget

A/N: This is a choppier story, I think, and while I was going for that, it might seem kind of, well, let's put it this way, amateur. So thank you for coming this far, and I hope you will continue and read what is below you. Now, down to business, if anyone actually reads these Author's Notes. I just want to make a small shout-out to my kick-ass reviewer, afrozenheart412. I know afrozenheart412 must review a lot of fanfictions, but it really makes my day every time I read one. So I just wanted to say thank you so much- to everyone- and I hope you have a good read.

-decyfer

* * *

><p>He stares at a toothbrush.<p>

Damn toothbrush.

He stands without any real reason in front of a sink, in front of a mirror. He looked like the living dead, didn't he? He chuckles at this, just a little. The rest of him shrinks as he looks at the toothbrush.

Damn toothbrush.

His hair was a certifiable mess, even for him; his eyes were sunken and dark, bruises underneath the lids. He's not complaining. He's not a complainer. His back is hunched, his head tilted in a dog-like manner, feet apart, in a kind of sleepy fighting style. He can't remember the last time he got a decent amount of sleep, and instead of getting some, he's staring. At a toothbrush.

It's her toothbrush.

The one he had insisted she have.

It was pink and purple with a small cartoon flower. It was meant for a little girl, not a grown woman.

It was a joke, really.

So it's her toothbrush. The one he keeps cursing. Of course, she had cursed it too, when she had first seen it in the cup that served as its holder. She knew it was for her.

He had laughed.

She had threatened to cut him off from her cooking.

He hadn't laughed again.

They crashed at each other's places often enough. He had a pair of clothes in one of her drawers; she had a wardrobe built in a small corner of his closet. Not that his closet was large, by any means of the imagination, but she fit into it seamlessly.

She was neat, he was messy. Maybe that had been why they had been constantly driven to squabble.

She always glared at him, playfully, when he came over, like even the air around him brought mess. He'd leave a sock here and there, she'd pick it up, he'd leave a towel over a chair, she'd groan at him incessantly and then leave it there. So maybe she wasn't all that neat.

She had never complained about the dumpsters, after all.

Their places were not that far away, but still they had crashed, in the middle of a pizza once, between bites of various other take-outs more often, never when her home cooking was on the table.

Of everything about her, he missed that the least.

And she could have been a chef, too.

And so his and her apartment had become kind of a mixed statement. They would as often go to the other's apartment as their own, and would spend the night laughing and carrying on.

He remembered the nights they watched police procedurals, scoffing at the unrealistic appeal of it all.

He also remembered the comedy nights, and the nights where they made s'mores in his microwave.

He would never forget her.

She was his best friend, and she wasn't a girl, either.

Well, she was, but not that kind of girl.

She was rough-and-tumble, always willing to tackle that guy or wade nose-deep in that rank water to recover that dead body.

She was special.

He wonders how life could be that unfair and take her from him.

His alarm beeps again, from the other room. It's time for work. He sniffs once, twice, a third time. Maybe he's getting a cold.

He isn't.

* * *

><p>It's been a year since she's been dead.<p>

Lindsay greets him at the door, a pile of evidence in her arms. For a second, it isn't Lindsay, but another eager face. He shakes it off, realizing that he's staring.

Lindsay gives him a Look.

He can't find it within him to care.

* * *

><p>Stella is concerned about him, especially with the stuffed dog he's insisting on carrying around.<p>

She knows that dog.

He knows it, too.

* * *

><p>Mac is stoic as usual. She was like a daughter to him.<p>

He knows.

They worked together for six years, she and him.

She used their first case to end their last.

He misses her, too.

* * *

><p>He remembers taking the dog from her apartment. Of everything that she carried with her, the dog had been a point of complete befuddlement for years. It had belonged to her friend, her dead friend. It was his now. It belonged to the living friend of a dead friend of a dead friend.<p>

Maybe it was bad luck.

If it was, he would embrace it.

* * *

><p>"She's dead," he says to no one. Stella lifts her head from the opposite side of the room, her eyes pained.<p>

"I know," she replies, wishing there was something else to say.

He can't be strong anymore. He reaches out to the brown dog, one that he thought would give him comfort, and throws it to the floor in anger that isn't directed at it, but at himself.

Stella picks it up, brushes off nonexistent dust, and holds it to herself like a lifeline. "She was my protégée," she says quietly.

He remembers it clearly.

Mac had stuck his neck out for him.

Mac had done the same for her.

But he had given her to Stella to train. Stella had not been happy.

"I feel like I failed her," she continues. "I feel like I should have trained her better to combat what she went through. When she failed us, I failed her."

He can't imagine others feel to blame. He had promised himself to keep an eye on her, and he alone had let her down. "No," he says hoarsely. "It was me."

Stella smiles grimly. "The truth is, and it took me a long time to come to this realization—it's no one's fault. She made her own decisions."

"She's dead," he says again.

"I know."

And then there's nothing left to say.

* * *

><p>He's packed up everything.<p>

The toothbrush is gone.

So is the dog.

The pictures of her are boxed away in anguish.

His apartment is clean, but empty. All of the pictures of his team were gone, all containing her.

He can't stand it.

She's in boxes underneath his bed, containing a past that should be honored and certainly remembered.

It isn't healthy to pack her away to be forgotten.

It can't be.

He knows she's gone, he knows she isn't coming back.

He'll never forget her.

But for now…

For now it just hurts too much.


End file.
